1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to retailing devices and apparatuses therein, and, more particularly, to methods of deterring theft involving portable personal shopping devices used by consumers as they shop.
2. Description of Related Art
It is known that in retailing, portable shopper devices and applications are an emerging and popular technology. Portable shopper devices (also known as portable shoppers) use wireless technology, touch screen displays, include computer processing capabilities, and may also include scanning devices suited to scan labels of items offered for sale. These portable shoppers are generally situated and arranged on mobile equipment (such as carts or in a hand-held form) so as to permit consumers the ability to scan their selected items as they shop while providing those consumers the ability to thereafter complete the transaction by quickly proceeding through the checkout lane. Certain portable shoppers provide consumers the ability to also checkout from their devices by further including a swipe type of device (such as a magnetic card stripe reader (MSR) suited for a credit card).
In many cases, retailers are also including upgraded software applications (e.g., shopping list, deli ordering, product information, product locator) which provide consumers further options while shopping. While consumers are finding these portable shoppers to be convenient in use, retailers are realizing that consumers may elect to shop at a particular grocer due to this convenience and the shortened time in which the consumer may encounter throughout the entire collection and checkout process takes. This latter aspect is particularly enticing to consumers and retailers alike, as in the checkout lane there is no need to re-scan the collected items in the cart as the items in the cart have already been scanned by the consumer prior to placement in the cart.
As becomes obvious, the retailer directly benefits from this time saving feature as the retailer realizes reduced labor costs due to the expedited checkout process and can consider further advertisement or incentivized communication with the consumer during the collection portion of the consumer's time spent shopping.
However these portable shoppers, though convenient and economically well-suited, pose retailers with a significant concern—that of theft, both of products to be purchased as well as the device itself. In general, since the consumer is essentially performing the process of scanning products of interest prior to the checkout phase, retailers have expressed concerns that a consumer who uses a portable shopper may either accidentally or purposefully not scan all items which are intended for acquisition by the consumer.
It is known to attempt to make certain attempts to overcome this possibility of theft (also known as “shrinkage”) by initiating random re-scanning of consumers' carts of products, adding additional surveillance equipment and even hiring additional security personnel.
For instance, in the former scenario, the random re-scanning approach randomly identifies consumers who use the portable shopping solution such that when an identified consumer using a portable shopper approaches, certain members of the retailing staff are “informed” that a re-scan of the identified customer's cart will occur. Once the identified customer reaches the checkout area, a traditional checkout procedure is initiated where the retailing staff re-scans each item in the consumer's cart. During re-scanning, if a discrepancy is found, the customer-determined balance (the total amount due as determined by the consumer when using the portable shopper) is adjusted upwards or downwards. However, even where a discrepancy is found, typically a retailer does not take steps to seek punitive action against the consumer, primarily as the retailer realizes the error could be the result of but an honest mistake by the consumer. Certain retailers, however, may elect to electronically note the incident in association with the identified consumer and identify the consumer as being a “risk” in their electronic database, such that when that consumer uses a portable shopper in the future there is a strong likelihood that the consumer would be more likely to be re-scanned again.
While this solution serves mainly to randomly attempt to mitigate theft, this approach is not preferred by retailers as it is an inconvenience in time and patience for their consumers, it may also serve to accidentally embarrass loyal and honest consumers who make a scanning mistake, it can be used to wrongfully identify consumers as being high risk while others who are engaging in theft are not identified, and it fails to set an effective deterrent to would-be criminals and thereby fails to assist in controlling the problem of “shrinkage”.
It is also known to employ a video surveillance system in conjunction with targeted re-scans as another approach. To implement this approach, a system uses video cameras throughout the store to monitor consumers who use the personal shopping devices. These surveillance systems allow the retailing staff to monitor both the consumer and the data on their personal shopping device, concurrently or separately. In practice, if a member of the retailing staff were to observe a consumer place an item into the shopping cart, but were not to observe the consumer scanning the item, the staff may review the data from the consumer's cart to confirm that the item was not scanned; where this observation and corroborating information were to be identified by the retailing staff, then the staff could identify that consumer for re-scanning at the checkout via the approach first mentioned above. Unfortunately, though this approach may be better suited to catch would-be criminals than the random re-scanning approach, this process requires more equipment than the re-scanning approach and hence a large investment on the part of the retailer. This solution also requires the retailer to assign a dedicated staff to monitor the consumers and also to deploy dedicated staff on the floor to engage would-be criminals in the act.
It is also known to utilize Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags in a retailing environment. An RFID system includes the use of a simple, electronic tag attached on a product item that emits a signal so as to be detected by a sensing device when the RFID tag passes a sensor strategically placed in the retailer's store. Although these tags are not yet cost-effective, retailers are hopeful that this technology may eventually replace barcode labels of products such that RFID tags of each product will emit their own individual signals at checkout such that the contents of an entire shopping basket could be scanned all at once. However, at present these devices add a substantial economic burden to the retailer both with the additional of the RFID tags and the large, mandatory sensor equipment. Additionally, items of higher value are typically not well-configured to accept an RFID tag and it is relatively easy for a consumer, unseen, to switch RFID tags of one product with those of a lesser priced product.
It is also known to implement an approach that uses Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS) tags on higher-priced items in the store. These EAS tags are an improvement over RFID tags for the higher-priced items as they possess the following characteristics: they are hard to remove or detect by the consumer, they can be deactivated by the Point of Sale (POS) systems during the checkout process, and, when active, they can set off an alarm as the consumer leaves the store. Though these EAS-based systems have proven assistive in a traditional checkout environment, since they also possess the required characteristic that each tag must be deactivated, the use of an EAS system with a portable shopper has heretofore not been considered for or demonstrated to be a workable solution.